


Laurel

by ancientreader



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cocaine Use, M/M, attempted rape as a metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 03:14:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5727601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancientreader/pseuds/ancientreader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daphne, pursued by Apollo, is transformed into a laurel tree. This time, the story doesn't end there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laurel

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to have to make a list of new and inventive ways to thank [TSylvestris](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TSylvestris/pseuds/TSylvestris), on whose good graces as a beta (and in other ways) I impose constantly. 
> 
> The existence of this fic is largely the fault of [Chryse](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Chryse/pseuds/Chryse), who made the grievous error of suggesting that I do a series based on ancient texts. Be careful what you wish for! 
> 
> If you're unfamiliar with the Greek myth of Apollo and Daphne, the gist is that Apollo insulted Eros who, pissed off, shot him with the golden arrow that inspires love and shot the nymph Daphne, who wasn't interested in men anyway, with the lead arrow that inspires "Beat it, creep." Daphne fled, Apollo pursued, Apollo caught up, Daphne turned into a laurel tree to escape him. Then Apollo used the leaves of the laurel tree to weave the "crown of laurels" that heroes are meant to wear. A detailed recounting of the myth is [here](http://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph.htm#488381106%0A).
> 
> You might wonder why Apollo's state of mind is characterized as love. Me, too.

1.

The White God would have you believe his prey loved him.

No, not that. 

The White God would have you believe that, if not for _interference,_ his prey would have loved him. 

Some penny-ante godling with a grudge shot the White God with the arrow of gold and shot Sherlock with the arrow of lead. 

Shot with the arrow of gold, the White God could see nothing in the world but Sherlock.

Shot with the arrow of lead, Sherlock feared the White God and would not submit to his embrace.

*

The White God claims that, if not for the arrow of lead, Sherlock would have found him irresistible. In fact, it was a near thing — enough to make you wonder whether there was a lead arrow at all. For Sherlock was smitten, at first. The White God was all glitter and clarity. Thought at the speed of light: how Sherlock loved thought! The White God’s company made Sherlock feel invincible. Most of the time, when the White God wasn’t around, Sherlock was all too vincible, just another skinny boy with a weird-looking face and a knack for attracting attention from the sort of bloke who can’t pass a skinny weird boy on the pavement without shoulder-slamming him. 

When the White God was in and around him, though, weird-boy Sherlock became an exotic chilly king. In the White God’s company, Sherlock sent out arrows of his own in every direction. Arrows of contempt. The arrow of superiority. The arrow of money — or the arrow of looking like money, anyway: the White God was no cheap date, and Sherlock was always broke. But he didn’t feel broke, and that’s what matters, isn’t it? How you feel?

*  
_How do you feel, Mr. Holmes?_

*  
_Mr. Holmes, it might be wise to consider —_

*  
_I’ve got to be honest, Mr. Holmes. You’ve been lucky so far._

*  
In _this_ place, the place of C 17H21NO4, there isn’t much to direct your excited attention to: just a man pacing; a man biting his lips bloody; a man snapping at the cashier in the kebab shop and leaving without his sandwich.

Also: the same man leaning against the wall outside, his eyes closed. The cashier emerges; he says something in surprisingly gentle tones to the leaning man and presses a paper bag into his hand — the paid-for sandwich — before going back inside. 

The man leaning against the wall doesn’t respond. Eventually he walks away. The paper bag holding his sandwich remains on the pavement behind him.

*  
In the other place, the country of the White God, Sherlock is running. His face is contorted. Footsteps behind him pound at exactly the rate of his terrified heart. His throat whistles and heaves. He sobs. Of whom can he beg mercy? His bare wounded feet leave blood behind him in the leaf mold and the dirt. The White God is never more than a finger’s breadth away. _I have everything to offer you,_ he promises into Sherlock’s ear.

That’s how close he is.

 _Kiss me,_ the White God says. _Come on and kiss me._

...

_Kiss me. You know you want to._

...

_Just turn your head a little, baby. I’m right here._

...

_Just let me. Just once. I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do, baby. I’ll just hold you._

...

That’s what matters, isn’t it? How you.

Don’t.

Feel.

*

_No, no, no, I won’t, no —_

*  
When it happens, it happens suddenly. There’s nowhere to go and the White God _now_ closes the last infinitesimal distance _now please save me O my father O my mother O anyone anyone save me_ but no one comes and —

— And he can’t move, but it’s all right, because no one has come but something has changed and Sherlock feels no desire and no fear. The White God lays cold hands on Sherlock, but what he touches is not skin; it’s bark, fine bark, impermeable bark.

Far, far underneath it, out of reach of the White God’s hand, Sherlock’s heart thrums.

His roots drive down and bring him water.

He can see, yet his eyes are sealed.

He can hear, yet his ears are stoppered.

He can speak, and he can breathe, yet his mouth is covered over.

The White God touches the laurel tree everywhere, and Sherlock feels nothing.

*  
The man in _this_ place looks down from his window sometimes, at the hurryings and the dawdlings and the embraces outside. He sees lips move in conversation. Alone is what he has. Alone protects him.

*  
The White God plucks leaves from the crown of the tree and weaves them into a wreath to crown a hero. _Remember me, _the White God says. Remember me.__

2.

But the story can’t end there; I won’t let it.

One day a person appears. A man. Of course his name is John. He too has been pursued, though not by the White God or any other lover. 

(“Lover.”)

It’s difficult to say what John is pursued by, exactly. Or rather, it’s difficult for John to say; to us, it might be more obvious. He experiences it as the sensation of cold jelly against his skin: something wet and insentient that he would identify as ectoplasm if he were of a spiritualist bent, which he is not. There is the puzzle of how this cold jelly always already is wherever John goes; he’s not too stupid to suspect that this means the thing quivering against him is intimate to himself. In any case he doesn’t try to kill it. He wouldn’t know how.

In fact, John is pursued, netted, caged by the feeling that comes of knowing so many people who are dead. Hence the association with ectoplasm. Hence, also, John’s reluctance to consider it too closely and to give it a name.

So on this day, John, in hobbling flight from his own grief, discovers a laurel tree that is more beautiful than other trees and (he doesn’t quite say this word aloud) more tender. He finds that when he rests beside the laurel tree, the gelid feeling recedes: we might say that when he rests beside the laurel tree, his many dead rest too. 

*  
We are speaking about a return from exile.

*  
Over John, the leaves of the laurel tree tumble and toss; sometimes, in certain lights, they resemble black shaken curls.

*  
There are periods when John tells himself that the tree’s beauty is an invention of his own. He might speak coldly to it, calling it a block of wood.

He might call Sherlock a machine.

At these times, John’s dead grow restive again, and he himself enacts the unfeeling he attributes to the tree. To Sherlock.

Eventually, however, he always returns, feeling regrets he hardly dares admit.

*  
The laurel’s bark opens like a door onto living skin.

*  
When John abandons Sherlock, his sleep is troubled and he always awakens alone, no matter who lies beside him. 

*  
When John returns to Sherlock.

*  
When the soldier returns to rest sweetly beneath the laurel tree — 

*  
John goes, John returns.

*  
John goes, John returns.

*  
John promises never to leave Sherlock again. This time he keeps his promise.

*

The soldier touches the laurel’s bark and under his hand there is only warm skin.

Wherever he touches the bark, it opens.

Here is a mouth.

Eyes, nostrils, ears.

An anus, a navel, the tiny gate at a cock’s tip.

Arms.

A trunk, a torso.

The laurel heaves from the earth on strong legs.

*

John opens his eyes. Sherlock bends to enfold him in cool shade.

*  
I’m not a hero, Sherlock says, remembering what makes a hero’s crown.

*  
They make their own desire. All the gods, penny-ante and otherwise, let them be.


End file.
